Baptism should be administered by a
canonical clergyman. The Holy Bible shows us that the
Lord Jesus Christ
did not commend the task of baptism to the public but commanded it to
His pure Apostles. Before His ascension, He said to them: "Go therefore and
make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit" (Matt.28: 19). This is also confirmed in (Mark.16: 15,16).

It is very clear that it was the Apostles
who undertook the task of baptism as we read in the Book of Acts in the
spread of the Early Church. Then the Apostles commanded the task to
their disciples the bishops who in turn commanded it to the priests.

For these reasons we do not accept a
baptism which was not administered by a clergyman. The clergyman
should be an canonical clergyman in the sense that the laying on of
hands was carried out by an apostolic and a canonical
bishop. He should
not be an expelled nor an anathematized priest, but a priest who has the
Presbyterian to administer the Sacraments.

The above reasons are our answers to the
question, repeatedly asked of us: “why do the Orthodox Church re-baptise the converts from the Protestant denominations”?

We could also say that we adorn them with
all the spiritual treasures which they did not receive when accepted their

Protestant baptism. We usually ask of them: "Have you received salvation in your baptism? Have you
received righteousness, newness of life and the forgiveness of sins? Have you been clothed with
Christ in baptism? Have you been born
anew? Especially that you did not consider baptism to carry with it any
of those graces

We also repeat the non-Orthodox baptism
as a canonical priest did not conduct it, while our Protestant brethren
refute human priesthood, as well as the teaching of
the holy sacraments.

While it may have been administered in
the Name of The Holy Trinity , we tend not to call the baptism of a
Protestant convert “a re-baptism” as it lackes three important
qualities: